ALTHOUGH indications are that it may not happen, all eyes are on the second national land conference slated for November this year.
Rumours have started swirling around that government may have no money to host the land conference this year. Then there is the lingering reality that the land reform ministry, the custodian of land matters in this country, so far has offered few clues as to preparations for the conference.
Yet, the excitement is building up, the anticipation is high, and round table discussions and community meetings by land stakeholders are in full gear.
So is the hope that the conference would fast-track a land reform process needed to address persisting inequitable access to and ownership of land in Namibia. The nation has good reason to be hopeful. The current land reform policy is inadequate; structurally skewed; and failing to deliver.
We also know that the current land reform is failing to meet one of its main goals of improving the livelihood of the resettled people by turning them into self-reliant and productive farmers. Consequently, many of the ordinary folks resettled so far remain poor, unable to escape poverty and largely depend on government social grants.
The land inequality largely stems from German and apartheid South African colonisation. But it also stems from what happened after colonialism fell in 1990.
Colonialism displaced about 70% of the population, leaving nearly all commercially viable and productive land in the hands of the few – of which the majority were whites.
The collapse of colonialism raised hopes that independent Namibia would reverse the colonial trend of land dispossession and treat land as an important economic asset and source of livelihood that could be used to build a fair and just Namibia.
The first national land conference held in 1991 produced about 24 resolutions to ensure equitable access to and ownership of land. The mandate to implement the land reform was given to the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement which produced the National Land Policy (NLP) of 1998 to prioritise fairness, transparency and accountability in land reform and administration of Namibia’s land and natural resources.
Twenty-seven years into our independence, however, the outcomes of the 24 land conference resolutions and all good principles outlined in the national land policy remain a puzzling mystery.
Will the second coming of a national land conference solve the current urban and rural land problem and distribute the resource equitably?
To answer that question, we have to revert to the question why the current land reform is failing big time. It is not merely the question of an implementation deficit but what the post-independence land reform and land policies lack in content and substance is also a contributory factor.
It is therefore the premise of this piece that the current land reform did not alter the status quo but merely perpetuated the very same colonial patterns of biased land tenure, inequitable land distribution, and neoliberal policies, resulting in massive land-grabbing and privatisation by the elite and private companies.
The neoliberal approach to land reform and redistribution not only ignored the historical, political, cultural and spiritual significance of land in Namibia but also left many historical grievances – such as racially based land dispossession, skewed patterns of land ownership, and rural-urban development imbalances – over land unresolved.
In the context of this neoliberal land reform, the farm resettlement process took an elitist-approach in which the powerful politically connected and the rich joined hands in the scramble for farm lands in commercial and rural areas. The current urban and rural allocation and development also are designed and implemented in a way that favours the powerful, politically connected and the rich.
But the most common cause of neoliberal-driven land reform failure is the inadequate post-resettlement support for the landless once they are resettled. The post-settlement support was poorly designed, insensitive to the livelihoods of the resettled people, and for the most part, left it to the mercy of the free market to sort out.
As a result, therefore, not only is the land reform failing in equitably distributing land but also failing to turn the land and farm resettlement beneficiaries into self-sufficient and self-reliant producers of adequate livelihoods from their resettled land.
It is important that we draw lessons from the first national land conference in that it was more of a symbolic than substantive or material. What the first conference failed to achieve is to articulate clear social mechanisms and strategies (in terms of content, substances and processes) to translate land reform into a concrete reality for all, not just the lucky or chosen few.
As much as the second national land conference is important, it will be self-defeating if it will still advance a neoliberal agenda and conclude without clear goals and processes how it will be translated into action.
